I see a young woman whose eyes reflect the numbness, the emptiness, the lack of feeling she chose to use to protect herself from a tough upbringing. One where she never could trust that anyone or anything she loved would stick around. One where it was far safer to bury your emotions and needs than to have them.
Depression helped me numb. Depression is what I see in those eyes.
Now, when I look at pictures of myself, I check in with those eyes to gauge how I’m really doing. It helps me see if that brain fog is starting to set in. Here’s a picture from another time when I hit a rough patch. And while physically I look more like I do now, those eyes tell a different story. Those eyes are warning me that it’s time to work a bit harder on coming back to balance.
The physical stuff I do helps bring me back to that balance, maintain it, and fight like hell sometimes not to have those blank eyes creep back into the picture:
After mindfulness helped me get to a place where I wanted to focus more on the physical I used to say, “I don’t want to let genetics win.” Now, I know there is only so much of that under my control. It’s far more accurate for me to say that maintaining physical health is a HUGE piece of the puzzle to maintaining my mental health. And that I believe mental health drives a lot of the choices that make us healthier or feel sick.
The sense of accomplishment from the workout, the overcoming a literal hill on a run or the adrenaline of lying sweaty on the floor after a JessSimsBootCamp helps me push past the need to go numb that still lives in me. The feeling of content fullness after a meal of foods that buzz happily in my body, from my own love-soaked kitchen or that of another, helps me ward off that emptiness in my eyes.
As long as you feel fully present and full of life in that home in your body, that’s what matters. THAT’s what true balance feels like. And that is what I wish for all of you. 💗